As I’m taking the photos, an old man shuffles out of the cabin guarding the saw machine and the sand pile. “Fascinating”, I enthuse. “They’ve been building it for nine years”, he says proudly. “More and more, always when there is a bit of money for it”. He brings out a leaflet calling for donations, showing the ideal plan of the envisioned final state, which lags in audacity far behind the current version. If it will be completed on a day, the Ukraine will be poorer with a wonderful steampunk work of art.

This entry was written on the Bruno Schulz festival in Drohobycz, where we participated at the invitation and with the support of the Polish Institute of Budapest.

3 comentarios:

Martin Lemke has shared this post on Facebook with the following enthusiastic text: “Без единого гвоздя - народная архитектура Западной Украины. / Without a single nail – folk architecture from Western Ukraine.”

Wonderful! A minor correction: "It has been built for nine years" implies it was finished nine years ago; it should be "It's been under construction for nine years" or (probably more likely usage for an old guy watching the site) "They've been building it for nine years."